Wound care | 3 min read

Tips and tricks to prevent pressure injuries in the OR: practical steps for nurses and nurse managers

As part of a series on pressure injury prevention in the operating room, Mölnlycke spoke to a group of specialist nurses and nurse educators. They shared their knowledge and offered tips for nurses and nurse managers to make pressure injury prevention in the OR a success.

Make it easy for busy nurses to help prevent pressure injuries in the OR

Nurses are busy – and any new steps or measures must take this into account. It’s important not to overload the OR nurse or make his or her job more difficult.

Communication (of patient skin injury risk status, for example) should be swift and seamless and should not rely on the OR nurse checking and rechecking the patient record, for example.

Similarly, an OR nurse will want to position a prone patient with full preventative protection, but it is more difficult to do this in a timely manner if the necessary equipment is not to hand.

In the videos our experts talk about ways to optimise prevention in a way that is time-effective for nurses through clear communication and the strategic use of wounds carts.

Continuity of care and patient hand off

Every time a patient is handed over from one team to another, there is a potential for information to get lost in the hand off.

Every patient should have a pre-operative assessment for pressure injury risk (for more on this see our article on criteria for assessing patient risk.

It’s not enough to note the result in the medical record. To ensure safety and continuity of care, a quick conversation should confirm the latest status. If a patient is high risk, it is helpful to have a system to visually mark this, e.g. putting different coloured cap or bouffant on the patient.

Watch the video on wound carts

Communication with surgeons and patients

Communication from nurses to surgeons is important in educating the team. This should help over time to increase co-operation, as many surgeons are unaware that pressure injuries can be sustained in the OR. (For more on educating surgeons and others see our article on setting up and running an OR pressure injury prevention programme.

Similarly, explaining to high-risk patients why you are using dressing or gel positioners to protect them is likely to increase co-operation and raise awareness.

Using wound carts in OR pressure injury prevention

One simple, practical step that can make a difference is to have fully equipped wound carts available in key areas. This avoids delays and makes the process smoother for nurses, patients and the surgical team. The carts should contain the equipment for pre-operative pressure injury prevention (e.g. appropriate dressings in a full range of sizes) and can be brought into the room when a high-risk patient is being prepared for surgery. Ideally the cart will also be equipped with a computer, so the nurse can complete any documentation immediately rather than having to do so later at another workstation.

A note on terminology: ‘pressure ulcer’, ‘pressure injury, ‘pressure sore’ or ‘bed sore’ are all commonly used terms. We use ‘pressure injury’ throughout this article to include all the above.